


Ghosts of the Long Night

by hbur08



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-15 16:30:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18673354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hbur08/pseuds/hbur08
Summary: After the battle is won, only ghosts remain. Jaime struggles through the immediate aftermath of the Great War that was won, and he is but of ghost of the man he was. War changes men, and Jaime finds himself needing comfort for the first time in his life. Brienne is more than happy to provide it.





	Ghosts of the Long Night

**Author's Note:**

> I had to throw something like this together, sorry for any mistakes. I wrote this with The Night King's music playing in the background, because damn that was a score. 
> 
> Let me know what you think :)

When silence fell over them, Jaime’s ears continued to ring. He couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, and his left arm raged with a burn that made him feel like he’d lost his remaining hand. But his left hand was still there, tightly clutching the handle of Widow’s Wail, and he could feel the blisters ripping through his palm. He tried to let go, but the pain in his knuckles refused to let him. His breathing came heavy, his chest heaving against his armour. He waited for death to finally claim his, but he never came. 

The dead fell at his feet; one after the other, and the smell of death became more overpowering than ever before. It sickened him. The stench coiled through his nostrils, down the back of his hoarse throat and into his gut, threatening to twist his intestines into a violent wretch. But the shock overcame him. He watched, dumbfounded, as they continued to fall, all of them, leaving the remaining few with beating hearts still standing. His breath caught at last when the realisation dawned on him. 

“It is over.” He whispered. No one replied. For a horrific second, he believed he was the only one alive. For a horrendous moment, he thought that Brienne and Podrick had fallen. He dared to glimpse beside him, and he felt his heart skip several beats. They stood, filthy and battered and alive, on either side of him. His knees almost buckled, finally succumbing to the exhaustion that wracked his body, and an awful sound ripped from his throat. 

Podrick, with haunted eyes and staggered steps, moved forward. “Are we dead?” he whimpered, sounding like a pure, innocent boy. “Are we one of the dead?’ He didn’t look at Jaime or Brienne, only forward into the sea of the dead at the feet. He stumbled and went to fall with an almost pathetic whimper, but Jaime caught him and pulled him back. 

“Easy, boy, you’re alive. You’re breathing and moving and alive,” Jaime knelt down with the young man, clutching his shoulder desperately. Widow’s Wail lay abandoned, his good hand bleeding, warm and fresh against his skin. Pod began to tremble and weep against him, and all Jaime could do was pull his head against his chest, his fingers burying into the thick mop of hair on his head. 

Just then, Brienne fell beside them. Jaime looked at her as the boy in his arms sobbed uncontrollably. She stared back, her sapphires smouldering against the blood and dirt and ash clinging to her skin. Her hair was no longer pale, instead matted with gore and soot. She smelled of rot and sweat and smoke merged into one foul stench, just like Pod and no doubt himself. The man he once was would have recoiled, stood up even, but instead he leaned toward her. She pressed her forehead to his, and her hands found Pod. She gripped Pod’s arm with one hand and cupped his neck with the other, and the trio found themselves in a strange entanglement of comfort. 

Time passed by, but Jaime could not tell how much nor did he care. The sun was beginning to rise, and the cold subsided just a little. The moment he had stopped fighting, his bones began to seize inside him. He felt that if he moved he would snap at any moment, like a fragile twig in a storm. Brienne had bowed her head to his shoulder, and Pod had finally begun to calm down in his lap. Ash swirled around them, clogging up his airways, but something else made him raise his head. 

Among the dead, people began to move. Survivors moved amongst the dimming shadows, searching for friends and loved ones among the fallen. Among them, the Dragon Queen stumbled amongst the mounds of bodies, her grace having abandoned her somewhere during the night. She was filthy, her hair no longer that of perfection, her skin no longer the smooth pale like that of a new born babe. Despite his exhaustion, however, Jaime’s defences shot straight back up, and he shuffled awkwardly to his feet. He hung over Pod and Brienne, who also shakily stood, and stared at Daenerys Targaryen. She stared straight back at him, almost falling to a stop. 

Jaime did not miss the lines trailing down her cheeks, empty rivers where her tears had been. She had lost someone, and someone dear. Jon Snow? No, surely not. Surely the Warden of the North had not succumbed to the dead. But the pain in her blue orbs ran deeper than any grief he had seen dance in his own sister’s eyes, and Jaime knew that she had lost someone of far greater importance than Jon. And despite all the distrust, even now, Jaime bowed his head in as much of a respectful manner as he could muster; it hurt his neck to do so. 

A beat passed, and the Dragon Queen returned the gesture, and Jaime knew it was an honest gesture. Then she stumbled away, no doubt looking for her beloved, and Jaime watched her a moment longer before she vanished into the floating smoke of Winterfell. 

Jaime bowed his head lower. He heard no one, saw nothing. Death surrounded him. They had won the war, but there was nothing to celebrate. Never before had he been surrounded by so much death, and the fear he had felt throughout the night had nearly consumed him. The world had been at its darkest; an endless night of terror, and Jaime had been so sure he was going to die on more than one occasion. The force of the bodies hitting him had been immense, almost bone shattered. The screeches had been disorientating. The fire had been blinding. So many times he felt death grab and swallow him, but each time it had been Brienne pulling him back, and each time it had been a new wave of determination. She was his commander. He would not fail her. 

In silence, Brienne pulled away. It felt like time had slowed down. She looked awful as she walked through the tide of living beings. He knew where she was going, and he pulled himself up to follow her. Podrick was already trailing after her, like a boy chasing clumsily after his mother. Jaime did not try to catch up, for his burning legs betrayed him of doing so. The pain in his body shook him, and by now it hurt to even blink, the dirt and blood blurring his vision and paining him further. He felt sick when he had to climb over bodies, old flesh and bleeding corpses seeping through his boots. Time left him. 

Men reached for him, patting him on the shoulder, thanking him for his service. But they were ghosts. Ghosts of their former selves, for this war had been like no other. No one had life in their eyes, and they probably wouldn’t for a long time to come. Too many had died to be joyful. To win the war had come at such a cost it almost seemed worthless. 

But Jaime trudged on, and found himself in the courtyard of what was once Winterfell. There, the weak and vulnerable emerged into the light of the early dawn, spilling out and scattering to find their loved ones. He found Sansa a few feet to his left, wailing over the corpse he would later learn to be Theon Greyjoy. Her anguish was awful, so loud and deafening, and she shook in the arms of her trusted Knight, Brienne. Podrick hung back, staring at the floor, all life gone from his once optimistic character. As Sansa’s cries continued to haunt the castle, Jaime’s eyes finally found whom they were searching for. 

Tyrion, with his stumpy legs and his scarred, ugly face, was running for him. Jaime instantly dropped to his knees, and caught his little brother in his arms and sobbed into his hair. His brother clung to him, saying his name over and over, and the smell of wine was overwhelming against the smell of death. All around him, people cried with joy and despair, either finding their loved ones alive or torn apart. But he held his little brother so tightly he thought he may never let go, and that was okay. Seven Hells, he never wanted to let his brother go ever again. He needed him here, now, in this nightmare, because he was one of the only things that felt real. 

The Lannister brothers wept together, and as the dawn grew brighter, there was no reassurance in Winterfell. 

*

Tyrion’s brother was a ghost of the man he once was. For the second time, Jaime was a new, hardened man. Once he had been infatuated with their sister and only to her, never caring about anyone around him. And then he became someone better; someone worthy of honour, someone willing to change once the poison was sucked from his veins. But now, after the Long Night, Jaime was reborn yet again, and this man was seeing horrors that Tyrion could only imagine. 

The brothers sat by the fire in a chamber abandoned, the bodies already removed, but the stench remained. Jaime had shook out of his armour, and his body was raw when his tunic was removed. Bruise upon bruise, wound upon wound. He was a man fresh out of a war that should never have been won, but was. Gently, Tyrion ran a wet cloth over Jaime’s back, and the water stained black as it dripped down his skin. His older brother flinched quite a lot but did not complain. He did not speak, only stared into the flames, more than likely reliving the nightmare of the events just hours before. 

He ran the cloth over his brother’s ribs, as gently as possible, for they were raging red and blue and black. So many hits, and he had never fallen. Something told Tyrion that, by the law of the Gods, Jaime should have died. 

“Thank you, Jaime.” Tyrion said quietly.

“For?”

“Not dying.” 

Jaime snorted. “I should have,” he sounded strange, all wit and charm dead with his former self. “Had it not been for my commander.”

“Then remind me to give her my upmost gratitude.” Tyrion drained the black rag lazily onto the stone floor, twisting it a little too tightly. “You will become a legend of the Great War in years to come, brother.”

“I do not pray for that,” Jaime replied. “I pray to only forget.”

A moment of silence passed. “It will take a long time to heal, brother. But we will heal, and we will do it together.”

Jaime looked straight into Tyrion’s eyes then, looking haunted but honest all at the same time. The rich green of his youth was fading, replaced will a dull light that had seen things that should have never been seen. But the light in those eyes had dimmed a long time ago, Tyrion knew; they dimmed the minute doubt about Cersei seeped through the cracks of Jaime’s guard. Three dead children, a lost honour, and a Knight without his sword hand, Jaime had been broken for a long time. 

Someone cleared their throat at the assaulted wooden door just then. Tyrion looked away from Jaime’s eyes with a start, only to find Brienne stood there. She looked a little bit better than before, but not much. Her hair was back to its rightful colour, still damp from her wash. She was clad in her breeches and tunic, not clean but not filthy like the ones she war before. But her once brilliant eyes were dim, just like his brother’s.

“Ser Brienne, please, come in.” Tyrion greeted. She did as he asked, slowly, her eyes absently searching the room. They were wide, calculating, and her hand twitched without Oathkeeper. 

“You are safe,” Jaime reassured her. “I searched it already.”

Their eyes met, and Tyrion felt he was interrupting an important conversation with his presence. He didn’t mind. They had seen things together that he never would, and they had fought together throughout the Long Night. It did not go unnoticed that they, in an almost poetic fashion, had fought with the two halves of the late Ned Stark’s sword, Ice. Like those swords, Tyrion believed that one being would be complete without the other from this day forward. They were bound by swords and by war. It was a bond that Tyrion would never be able to compare, nor did he want to. 

So Tyrion left his brother’s side, walked over to Brienne of Tarth, and handed her the pathetic rag. “Look after my brother,” he said, “he needs you more than I.” 

Brienne did not say a word, only nodded, and it was the first time she didn’t argue. Tyrion was grateful. He needed wine, and Gods, he needed a lot. 

*

“Ser Jaime,” Brienne began, but Jaime had already heard enough. 

“Fuck the formalities, Brienne, I think me and you are beyond that now, would you not agree?” he stared at her sternly, his gaze piercing. “I am Jaime, and only Jaime, to you.”

“Jaime,” she said, and once again she did not argue. Jaime was grateful. He was tired and he was hurting, and he did not want to argue with the woman who had saved his life one too many times. “I wanted to see how you were.”

“I feel like one of the dead.” Jaime admitted. He winced in his chair, the shadows of the fire lighting over his muscles and illuminating the wounds he endured. He rested his elbows on his thighs and bowed his head, sighing heavily and rushing his remaining hand through his hair a little too violently. The tremors in his body still shook him, and it was becoming exhausting. 

Brienne didn’t say anything. Instead, she moved forward and knelt in front of him, her knees against the stone. Jaime stared down at her, deflated, and did not move when she reached up with the rag Tyrion had given to her. Gently, so, so gently, she brushed it against his cheek. He stiffened, but did not pull away. Brienne then proceeded to dunk the rag into the bucket of warm water by the fire that Tyrion had been using. Water dripped onto his breeches, but he didn’t mind. Carefully, she brushed the rag over her right cheek, ridding it of the blood and dirt. Jaime closed his eyes, having never experienced such as touch, especially not after a battle. 

After a battle, Cersei had never been so gently. She’d wanted to hear about all he had killed, know the finer details of the battle, and celebrate with wine and sex. Back then Jaime had welcomed it. It had been a thrill to fuck her until she was screaming after a battle; it had made him feel powerful, like a man she deserved, and she had hurt his wounds to make him fuck her harder. It had felt like the only way to act after a battle, and he had never known anything else. 

This was different. Brienne was so gentle. She carefully brushed the rag against his skin, hard enough to remove the dirt but not enough to hurt him. She traced his eyes, his nose, his mouth, and the warmth of the water began to trace his neck. He could feel the filth falling away from him, and it felt like he’d lost several layers of skin by the time she was finished with his face. He could see clearer, and he opened his eyes as she dampened the cloth once more to finish up his upper body. 

And then she gathered water in her hands, and slowly released it over his head. He gasped when she ran her wet hands through his matted short hair, and she spend time massaging the dirt from his golden strands. Her touch was careful and caring, and she whispered apologies under her breath when he winced, and she soothed his muscles into relaxing with her long fingers, pushing the tension out of his neck, through his shoulders and out of his arms. 

When she was done, he could only look down at her in astonishment. She stared back, her eyes wide and all too knowing, and she did not make an effort to stand up. 

“Has no one ever helped you after a battle?” she asked. 

“Not like that,” he confessed, watching her carefully. 

“They should,” she said, tearing her eyes away. “It is no good to wash and dwell alone.”

“I wasn’t alone,” he argued. 

“You brother did not see it, he did not see what we saw.” She told him, watching him carefully. “but he is right, we will heal, and we will heal together.”

For the first time, Jaime managed to quirk an eyebrow. “Lady Brienne, were you eavesdropping?”

She looked away from him, falling back on the balls of her feet. Jaime realised she was barefoot, and they were near black, the skin damaged and exhausted from the hours of fighting. 

“How is your squire?” he asked, hoping to draw her eyes back to his. She did, and she looked so, so tired. 

“Resting.” She said, and sighed heavily. “I lost so many…”

“Don’t.” he interrupted hurriedly, not wanting to walk down that dark, dark road. “Not now, not tonight. There was nothing to be done.”

Her eyes bore into his, and he felt like he was floating. Time went by, but he was stuck, entranced by her. “I would do it all again.”

“Do what…”

“I would fight for you, with you, all again. I would die a thousand deaths if it meant that you lived a long, happy life.” He reached down, taking her hand in his. “I would fight at your back again and again, if it meant I got moments like this one last time. You are the only one I want to fight with.” He dropped his head. “I thought I lost you so many times, and I was ready to give up so many times. We appear to have a habit of saving one another, do we not?”

For the first time since he Knighted her, which felt like years ago, she smiled warmly. “It’s a good habit.” 

“Rest with me.” He blurted. 

“Are you feverish?”

“Gods, no. Please, stay with me. Let me enjoy your closeness without the threat of the living dead looming over us. I want to feel human again.” He squeezed her hand. “Don’t leave me.”

Slowly, she reached up and pressed her lips fervently to his forehead. He shivered, closing his eyes again, and appreciating the touch more than she would ever know. “I will stay,” she whispered against his skin. “For as long as you need me.”

“Always,” he whispered back. “I will always need you.”


End file.
